Soul Fest
by Elf Heart121
Summary: Death is waiting for Luna to return from Purgatory Studies to go against Satan. But lately something wierd is starting to happen and an unknown presence is watching his every move.
1. The Loss of Souls

Some life this had been.. Well more like Death. Zane had to admit it had gotten pretty boring lately. The job was very repetitive; find a client and take their soul. Not exactly a pleasant job, but it was simple enough. In fact, sometimes he quite enjoyed it, and was occasionally able to save souls from death or comfort them until death. They had even started to call him "Friendly Death". He had enjoyed the position of Death. But lately the job had lost its spunk.  
His beloved Luna was in Purgatory College studying politics and he was asked kindly not to interfere with her studies while she was attending. He longed to be with her, but knew he mustn't slow her in her studies. For in 15 years or so she would lead a political rebellion against Satan, and help lower Sin in the world, as told to him by Fate.  
Then he snapped awake. He had a job to do. Zane looked down at his watch. Oops! He had spent so much time day dreaming he only had 3 minutes to get to his next client. He mounted Mortis, his faithful death horse, and took of in the direction his rings pointed.  
Mortis finally landed near a church in a very rich part of some town. He followed one ring which had an arrow magically placed on it that currently pointed to a church. Strange, normally Death only attended to souls who were balanced between good and evil and could not be placed normally in Heaven or Hell. Oh well. He began walking towards the church and a second ring shaped like a cat eye did something. The eye grew larger. This confirmed it his client was going to die in a couple of a minutes here in somewhere in the church.  
Zane began walking past the rows of people, concealed from being noticed by means of his death robe. Apparently his client was upstairs for his arrow on his ring was jittering from side to side. He went up and still it jittered. Must be in the attic. He walked up into the attic and there was a man on the floor with a bottle at his side. It was suicide.  
"What did you do?" There was nothing but silence. "You can't fool me you still have a minute and a half or so of life."  
"Alright what do you want Death?" The man sounded slightly drunk and arrogant. "I want to die in peace."  
"What is it you have done to yourself?"  
"I just drank some poison that I could find." He said as if it were no big deal. "I have no family, no one even knows my name. What's the point of living."  
"If you do die now you have a chance of going to Hell or Heaven. I could help you so that you could survive sometime longer and do some good before you die to make it more possible for you to go to Heaven."  
"Doesn't matter to me where I go. I'm just tired of life." He started hacking and coughing up mucus and blood.  
"Very well if that is what you wish." He looked down at his watch. It was time. He reached his hand toward the man and grabbed inside of his head. He caught his soul and carefully pulled it out.  
This was the saddest part of his job. When people didn't care about the alternative and only wanted to die. They had lost their will to survive and just gave their lives away.  
On Zane's way to his next client he examined the soul found it tilted more towards good and he sent it off to heaven.  
He then continued on with his job for the rest of the day. After he was done he had found that only one soul had to be sent to Purgatory today. It was an abnormally low number. He then headed for Purgatory and dropped off the soul. Then something hit him that he had always wondered so he figured he'd ask now.  
"Who is in charge of Purgatory?" He asked the computer assistant at the front desk.  
"Why the Purgatory Main Frame of course." She responded.  
"Where is that?"  
"In the deepest reaches of Purgatory. Your female called Luna is there as we speak. Now if you don't mind I have work to attend to." She then turned around and began filing papers.  
He then returned to his death mansion and rested.  
  
I hope I can continue this story it's a hard topic to work with but I'm enjoying it. Hope you like the story, when I finish it that is. ( 


	2. Purgatory

He continued his job for a few more days and the souls going to Purgatory were unusually low each day.  
"Why is there a lowered number of souls arriving in Purgatory?" He asked the robot at the front desk.  
"Not sure."  
Even Purgatory didn't know. Hmm something was strange now. Normally Purgatory knew everything.  
The next morning he continued on his route. When he had almost reached one of his clients a strange beast came charging past him in the direction of his client. He looked at his watch and found he still had considerable time left. This apparently this was not a harmful beast. As he continued following his ring it suddenly jumped to another client. What had just happened! This was absurd. His watch had never done that before. Might as well play along.  
Zane continued on his route and nothing strange happened. The same was for the next few days. Everything was fine after that one experience. Oh well.  
After a few more days he came near another client. Suddenly the strange creature came charging by again. This time he got a better look at it for it he heard it stampeding towards him. It was a large red lizard, but with some strange features. The thing was made of shiny red almost armor like scales. It had a mouth much like an anteater's with a long trunk, and gigantic tusks. Fortunately it didn't hit him on its way by. He looked at his watch once more. There was still time left. He rushed to the client and the creature he had seen before came rushing in the opposite direction. The arrow on his ring had changed again jumping clients without him getting the soul. This time Zane continued following where the arrow had left off. Finally he reached a man lying on the floor looking as pale as a ghost.  
He kneeled down to see the man, "Are you ok?" Dead, the man was dead.  
Was it the creature? How could that monster have killed him without the watch reaching zero? What had happened? He decided he might as well take the soul and hope he encountered the creature again. He reached down to grab the man's soul. As he reached for it and reached inside the man, there was nothing there. He grabbed frantically around the man's body searching for a soul. There was none there! That beast had stolen this man's soul. That was why his watch jumped from one client to another, the current client had already been taken care of.  
But the number of souls he had collected was normal except for Purgatory souls. But why would the beast only want those. He had to find out.  
He stopped the death timer on his watch and headed for Purgatory.  
"Why has a beast been rampaging around stealing the souls of those who would normally come here?"  
"Unsure."  
"Who sent the monster?" He was beginning to not appreciate this robot.  
"Unsure."  
Now it was time to see if the robot had been cursed to not say information on the subject similar to Satan's curse a few years ago. "Who didn't send the beast then?"  
"The mortals and all of the Incarnations."  
This was tough. All that left him with was Souls and Machines. Could it be?  
"Did a machine not send that monster loose?"  
"Negative."  
Hmm this narrowed down his choices quite a bit. There was only one machine he could think of that had enough power to steal the souls out of living people. "Did the Purgatory Main Frame not have any involvement with the soul stealing monster?"  
"Negative."  
Aha! So it was the Main Frame. But why would it steal souls from itself, since the souls it was currently stealing would come to purgatory anyway?  
"How do I reach the Main Frame?"  
"Stairs." It said as it pointed to a small door on her left.  
"Thank you." He headed down the stairs and asked himself. What was he getting himself into this time? 


	3. Satan's Challenge

After continuing down towards the base of Purgatory for what seemed for him to be hours he finally reached a large chamber, filled with millions of tiny robots working on a much larger machine. He gaped for a moment at the monstrous titan that the machines were creating, then suddenly there was a red flash and before him stood an old man wearing a hooded-cloak. He tripped back a moment in surprise then regained equilibrium.  
"Who are you?" he inquired to the man.  
"Do you not recognize me?" he said with a devilish smirk as he pulled back his hood.  
Zane stared for a moment trying to analyze that this was, then it hit him, "Satan! What are you doing down here. And what happened to you?"  
"Not that it's any business of yours but I had a bad little run-in with Nox and so I'm down here trying to work up a remedy for this damn old age I obtained." As he finished speaking the red beast appeared from nowhere and Satan lifted his hand up the creature's trunk and grabbed a handful of souls. "With these spare souls I will be able to rejuvenate myself to my former state. Here I will demonstrate." Satan took one of the souls in his hand and swallowed it whole. In that instant Satan looked at least 4 or 5 years younger than he had a minute ago.  
"So it was you who has been interrupting my schedule. But what did the Purgatory main frame have to do with any of your plans?" He asked becoming quite curious.  
"By corrupting the Main Frame I was able to find a remedy and locate this fine creature called the Soul Reaver. I call him Shreaver for short. Isn't he adorable," he said while patting the monsters gargantuan foaming mouth, "With him I'll be able to be back to normal in no time."  
The thought of Satan eating souls appalled Zane, "There must be another way to regain your stolen youth besides stealing my souls."  
"Of course but this was the easiest most efficient way of getting it back so I figured I'd just do it this way." Satan said while swallowing yet another soul and becoming a few more years younger.  
What was the other way?"  
"Oh it was fairly simple. It was to gather some rare ingredients found only in the five elemental regions. Nothing too big, I just chose the souls for convenience."  
"Return those souls to me now!" Zane yelled stamping a foot on the ground.  
"Very well, but only under on condition."  
"What might that be?"  
"Simple I thought you could've even guessed by now. I want you to retrieve the five items I need." Satan smirked for a moment as he talked, "They are a flask of frozen lava, a feather from a roc's wing, the never ending flame, the shoe of quake, and the vial of Chaos." As he finished his last word he vanished into thin air.  
Great now he had to travel all through Purgatory and the world collecting normal souls and items. What a job the office of Thanatos was. What a job indeed. 


End file.
